


Once were Kings

by Zimraphel



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, selling your soul to þauron as feminist praxis, thank you very much!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:02:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27657895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zimraphel/pseuds/Zimraphel
Summary: I am neither this nor that. It is funny how things change once you have power, how you change, at least in their perception.-[Almost entirely spirit, and so genderless, their gender only assumed to be male because they are fearsome and wave swords around. Surely this would be a very alluring deal for any power hungry female at the time: to be free from the limits put on their gender entirely and just be seen as a power].(very old short thing only uploaded on LJ at the time, I think!).
Relationships: genderbending evil queen/immortality
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	Once were Kings

_They were once Men. Great kings of Men. Then Sauron the Deceiver gave to them Nine Rings of Power. Blinded by their greed, they took them without question. One by one, falling into darkness. They are the Nazgûl. Ringwraiths, neither living nor dead."_

I am neither this nor that. It is funny how things change once you have power, how you change, at least in their perception. I was cruel, I was cunning. I could raise the dead, bend both animals and people under my will. Children trembled as I came by – was that not the shade of a beard on my ghostly cheek? Were those not the broad shoulders of a mighty man? And those arms! How well they wielded the sword. Only a son of kings could move with such purpose.

In truth, there is little of my humanity I remember. Some say that is a blessing, most say it is a curse: who am I to question them? Their imaginings are as strange as their minds themselves. They say we were tricked, enslaved; I do not think they give the Dark One enough credit. No, it was not either this or that, much like myself. Some of us were tricked, others were not: some of us were naïve, others went under fully knowing. Darkness covers things. Blurs boundaries. Many of those who were once men are now beasts, some the other way around. I take a human shape out of habit; nostalgia perhaps, sometimes. Though emotions are not as conflicting and varied as they once were, we do still have them, in a way, even in absence of a body to produce them. Perhaps they are only the memory of emotion, a vague imprint on the spirit. I am unsure. It does not matter. Darkness may not be one thing or the other, but to me it is freedom most of all.

The Witch King Of Angmar they call me. I do not contradict them. I have often been called a witch when I still were of fragile flesh and bone, and the only way they can acknowledge the power that radiates off me like body heat is by calling me King. I play along. I have always played along.

When I was still alive, I wore a beard. They are right about that, you know. I wore a beard, and I sat on a throne. It was His idea, the beard. Genius, of course; for all my cunning tricks and poisonous snakes, power somehow only becomes real to them when it takes a form they can comprehend. Fit into a scheme. Humans are such simple creatures, really. I think I killed many more when I did not have a beard, possibly because I had all the more to prove. But become a man and suddenly they understand: this is power, this is knowledge, this is wisdom. And I was given all those things. They say the rings sucked the life out of us – they were wrong. The rings changed us, changed me, but slowly. I ate and drank enough for many lifetimes. I had my pleasures. And enslaved and foolish you may call me, but yes, I had wisdom. Have wisdom. Not human wisdom, no; that is possibly why you do not call it so. But I would say understanding the mechanics of the universe down to its very smallest parts is some kind of wisdom, at least. Understanding the Darkness. The lack of matter. And the simple politics of human fear.

My duties here are but a small part of an immense experience, and I will hunt all of you down, hunt the ring down, until the very last. Not because of fear, not because of enslavement: but because that is my very last attachment to this place, the last thread, my one Oath – the condition for being given infinity.

“I am no man!” she shouts.

Neither am I, little one. Neither was I.


End file.
